


Of Something Old and Something Blue

by boats_birds



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corpse Bride (2005) Fusion, Attempt at Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, in which Kagami and Kuroko have a lot of confused feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 03:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12572488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boats_birds/pseuds/boats_birds
Summary: Then it spoke, voice like a mix of wind rustling leaves and the soft flutter of a butterfly.“Those could be beautiful vows, but I’m afraid you need to work more on the delivery.”And Kagami fainted.Kagami doesn’t want to get married. Let alone to a corpse that won’t stay dead. But sometimes weddings don’t go the way people want, and sometimes there are grave misunderstandings.





	1. With This Ring

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be clear, since this is a Corpse 'Bride' AU, a lot of the characters are dead. They're still present and talking and just as smartass/silly as always, but I feel it's important to note they're still dead. That's why I chose not to use archive warnings. There's also some murder shenanigans, but nothing worse than what's in the movie!

“Taiga? Taiga, are you listening to me?”

Kagami glanced from his corner of the carriage, slumped so his head banged against the side whenever they hit a bump. His father arched an eyebrow at him expectantly and he barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he slouched further in his seat and went back to looking out the window.

“Yeah, Dad. I heard you,” he said, cynical. “Everything must go according to plan, or whatever.”

His father’s face morphed into a scowl. “Not ‘whatever’, Taiga. This is important. For all of us.”

‘ _Except for me_ ,’ he wanted to snarl back.

But instead he sat in silence, eyes trained through the small cutout window. The time for arguments had already come and gone. He’d lost that fight spectacularly. It seemed his parents were so determined to decide his future, they didn’t care much about what _he_ had to say about said future.

“Taiga,” his mother said, composed and cold as always, “I told you to stop fidgeting with your tie.”

He yanked at it again for good measure, just to loosen it in that way that drove her crazy, before letting the red silk fall from his fingers. It had taken him five tries to get it right that morning, but it still felt wrong. Like a rope around his neck.

For a moment, just a moment, he entertained the idea of jumping out of the carriage. Of escaping from this greyscale town and the miserable buzz of people and the gloom of the air. He wasn’t sure what he wanted for his life, but he knew he didn’t fit here. He was too vibrant, too loud, and too red.

He was too _much_.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed when a butterfly flew by his window. Normally, he wouldn’t pay any attention to such a small thing. But its wings were so _blue_ , brighter than the grey sky could ever hope to be and clearer than the sad fog that clung to the buildings. He sat up in his seat, watching it fly past.

And then it was gone. Somehow leaving an empty place inside Kagami in its wake.

They pulled up sooner after that, sooner than he would’ve liked—though any amount of time would be sooner than he’d like. The mansion stood tall and ominous, dark spires cutting into the sky and windows suspiciously lifeless. Kagami scowled up at it, immediately uneasy and unimpressed by its grand size.

“Come, Taiga,” his father called after him, already heading up the front steps.

As he stepped inside behind his parents, it felt like the doors swallowed him whole. The interior was just as uninspired as the outside—stone walls and floors, colorless carpets, and a grand piano sitting to one corner. The only color in the whole entryway were a vase of roses on top of the piano and a family portrait at the top of the stairs.

Kagami tried to ignore how sad everyone in it looked.

His mother turned to him, reaching to fix his tie. “We’re going to speak to the lord and lady. Try not to break anything.”

He barely managed to resist rolling his eyes. Instead, he waited until his parents walked away before tugging his tie loose again. _Trying not to break anything_ , he walked around the foyer, his footsteps echoing as he looked at blank walls.

It was only a few minutes later that someone interrupted him.

“You must be Kagamin.”

The new voice echoed through the hall, lilting like a lullaby. Kagami turned to face her, and felt his stomach bottom out, twisting and feeding on knots. He swallowed and stood stock-still as she walked over to him, her black dress twin to his black suit.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, choosing to ignore the random nickname. He extended his hand out to her when she reached him. “Kagami Taiga. You must be Momoi.”

Momoi Satsuki smiled at him, small and strange in a way he couldn’t place. He supposed to anybody else, she would be really cute. With her long pastel hair, big Valentine eyes, and… _generous_ chest, to say the least. But Kagami felt nothing but dread when he looked at her, and he couldn’t see her as anything other than a guillotine.

She curtsied. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

He frowned. “You don’t need to be so formal with me. I’m not like my parents or anything.”

Her shoulders immediately relaxed, as she looked up at him curiously. “Yes, I suppose not. After all, we’re getting married in two days.”

It was like a sucker punch to his gut, so hard that it almost knocked him over. With just that one sentence, she made it all real. He thought he’d already come to terms with it, but the pounding in his head and the panic in his pulse said otherwise.

He was getting married. To a girl he didn’t know. For parents who didn’t care. In two days.

_Fuck_.

“This is…strange, isn’t it?” she asked, stepping away from him.

“Yeah,” he choked out, then cleared his throat. “Strange is one way of putting it.”

The silence hung heavy between them. He scuffed his feet against the floor while she pulled at the ribbons of her dress, both of them looking around the room at nothing. There were a thousand things he could say, and probably a thousand more that he should say, but Kagami had never been good at words.

There was only one thing he could think to say.

“Hey. Momoi.” Her name sounded weird coming from him. “I’m…really sorry.”

She blinked. “For what?”

“I just…” he hesitated, jerking at his tie anxiously. “I don’t really wanna do this. I know I don’t have a choice, and that’s not fair to you. I thought you should know.”

Surprisingly, she shrugged.

“It’s okay, Kagamin. If it were up to me, I’d rather not do this either.” She trailed off, looking to the vase of roses. “But I suppose neither of us has a choice.”

Another bizarre smile spread on her face, stretching her cheeks and squinting her eyes. It didn’t reach anywhere else on her face, and her rigidity returned in full force. In that moment, he realized why it looked so weird on her.

“Shall we go to practice the ceremony?” she asked, already walking away from him.

“Yeah,” he said, following behind her. “Sure.”

There was a reason they were dressed for a funeral rather than a wedding.

 

* * *

 

“Just take your time, Kagami.”

Kagami glared harder at the candle in his hand, wishing that sheer hatred alone could light it properly. His and Momoi’s parents stared at him from their seats, until Momoi’s father cleared his throat. The candle almost snapped in half under his grip.

Kiyoshi, the priest who would be officiating their ceremony, smiled wide and patient. “Would it be best to take a small break?”

“ _No, I got this_ ,” he growled.

He tried yet again to properly light his candle against Momoi's, holding it to her burning wick. And yet again, as he moved to hold it properly in front of him, the flame flickered out. A sigh slipped through Momoi's nose, masked behind his own bark of frustration.

How the hell he couldn't get a freaking candle to stay lit, he had no idea. He wasn't even sure why they needed candles for the ceremony, when neither of them wanted to go through with it. What kind of significance did a candle have for a wedding anyways? That arranged marriages would eventually go up in flames or burn everything down?

He knew that much already.

When the candle finally lit, before Kagami could even yell in triumph, it was blown at as the door to the hall swung open.

As the man walked in, Kagami couldn’t help but feel it was more like a spider crawling along the ceiling. His hair, slick and dark, matched his solid black suit, like an oil spill on the floor. He barely regarded either him or Momoi with eyes like ink, before turning to Momoi’s parents.

The room was so much colder, Kagami didn’t know how the candles stayed lit.

“Hello, I hate to interrupt,” he said with a sudden smile that sent chills down Kagami’s spine. “I heard there was a wedding, but I’m apparently a few days early.”

“And you would be?” Kiyoshi asked, closing his book with a curious tilt of his head.

He shot Kiyoshi a look pouring with venom, his charming mask cracking. “Hanamiya Makoto.”

Then he turned back to Momoi’s parents, going so far as to bow before sitting beside them. His smile was back in place, but it looked just as strange and warped there. Kagami frowned at him, glaring, until Momoi cleared her throat, setting her own candle on the makeshift altar.

Right, there were more important things.

Or at least, there were things that had to be dealt with, rather than worrying about some sleazy guy.

They picked back up where they left off before they were interrupted. He still had an awful time getting his candle lit, just for how his hands shook. But not from nervousness. Instead, they trembled more and more with each sickly sweet word that Hanamiya whispered to Momoi’s parents.

“Your daughter is lovely. Black certainly suits her. Her husband-to-be is…” he trailed off, eyeing Kagami up and down. “C _harming_ , I suppose. In that quaint sort of way.”

Kagami’s candle finally snapped in his hand.

He slammed the candle down on the table, the loud crack of it echoing through the room. In the silence that followed, he turned to give Hanamiya a piece of his fucking mind. Getting married to someone he didn’t know was already bad enough, but to have some asshole insulting him on top of all of that?

He couldn’t stay quiet. After all, he was too loud.

Hanamiya seemed to flourish under Kagami’s glare, his smile stretching into a grin. It made Kagami’s stomach turn in on itself. He drew back and inhaled deep, ready to hit with words or first, whichever came first.

Until Momoi screamed.

It was only then he recognized the smell of smoke and a familiar crackling warmth.

He spun around, mouth agape and eyes wide, to find he had knocked over Momoi’s candle as well. The tablecloth caught fire, burning a sizeable hole in the table. Kiyoshi grabbed a cup of wine—another prop in their vows that Kagami didn’t understand—and tossed it over the flames, dousing them.

No one spoke or moved. The only sounds were Momoi’s harsh breathing and his own confused noises. They held still as statues until Kiyoshi sighed and set the cup away, turning to smile at Kagami.

“Maybe we should wait until a later date,” Kiyoshi said, not unkindly. “When you’re more ready, Kagami.”

Their unwanted guest chirped in. “We’ll be waiting until death do us part then.”

Honestly, Kagami thought that didn’t sound too bad.

 

* * *

 

“Her hair is pink, _that’s not normal_.”

Kagami could see Tatsuya trying not to laugh. “Taiga, you’re not exactly normal yourself.”

He scoffed. “That’s not the point, Tatsuya! The point is that I don’t want to marry her! Or really anyone for that matter!”

Both Tatsuya and Alex looked like they didn’t know whether to laugh or wince at that.

The whole day had been a disaster. From having to meet the girl he was having to marry, to the asshole that showed up out of nowhere, to even the carriage ride home where he was served a lecture by each parent. Crashing on the sofa with Tatsuya and Alex was the only thing keeping him from freaking out.

“Taiga,” Alex said, leaning over the back of his seat to brush his hair aside. She had her motherly voice, which meant Kagami would hate what she said next. “As much as you may not want to, you may still have to. If your parents want you to marry her, there’s not much that can change their minds.”

His whole body froze under her touch, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“It’s not _fair_.”

“We know,” Tatsuya said. “You know we’d change it if we could.”

They’d known him his whole life. Tatsuya had been his best friend since before he could remember, and Alex had taken care of him since he was little. Both of them had always been there, because they knew him better than anyone.

But in that moment, it was like they didn’t know him at all.

Because what did it matter if that’s what his parents wanted? Why did it matter that money wasn’t enough for them, they wanted social status too? How could either of them possibly know when they’d never been forced into something like this?

“Neither of you _know_ ,” Kagami growled before he could stop himself. “You don’t know what I’m dealing with, and you don’t know how much I fucking hate this.”

He knocked Alex’s hand away and stormed out of his house, even as they yelled after him.

Kagami didn’t know where he was going, but it didn’t matter. He was going, and he felt better than he had all day. Just to be doing something of his own will and to be getting away from this awful place. He took off across the bridge leading out of town, towards the woods.

At the foot of the bridge stood two men, who Kagami vaguely recognized as the news announcers. One was completely silent, just ringing his bell, while the other was yelling with his cat-like grin, “Town wedding postponed due to fire!”

He kept walking.

Through dead trees and talking crows, he stomped. The more he walked, the more he kept thinking about the horrible practice ceremony, and how none of it made sense. He started to mumble to himself, mocking the vows that were supposed to bind him to another person.

“How could I be someone’s _wine_? Are they drinking me or something? And you can’t lift sorrows, it’s not that easy, dammit!”

His feet carried him to a clearing, with a few stumps and tree branches scattered on the ground. The crows had gotten louder around him, but so had he. Until he was screaming and yelling at nothing but the ring burning in his pocket.

“I mean, what’s the point of a ring anyways?!” He yanked it out of his pocket, glaring at it. “Won’t we just lose them?! ‘With this ring, I make you mine’? That’s _bullshit_!”

With his words resonating, he shoved the ring onto a tree branch.

Everything went silent at once.

It was like the earth itself stopped breathing—the wind held still, the crows had nothing to say, and the leaves waited in anticipation. Kagami looked around in a panic, only to find all the crows staring back at him. A quiet hum vibrated beneath him, shaking somewhere deep in the soil.

Then the branch snapped out and latched onto his wrist.

” ** _Holy fuck!_** ”

His scream—his incredibly manly scream—echoed in the clearing around him. It bounced off the trees, making the crows shuffle in their place, but none of them flew away. The quiet hum in the ground grew to a rumble, so strong that it knocked him off his feet and left him scrabbling backwards.

He watched in horror as a hand lurched out of the ground, clawing and hoisting a body behind it.

Out of the ground stepped a _thing_ the likes of which Kagami had never seen.

Its skin was blue. Blue like the sky and sadness and the butterfly’s wings from that morning, with matching hair and eyes. A black suit trimmed to its frame made the color stand out even more, like how the night accentuated the stars, or a lake accentuated the moon’s reflection.

More than anything, however, Kagami was fixated on the parts that _weren’t_ there. Such as the chunk of its cheek that was missing, molars and canines visible in a skeletal grin. Its shirt was torn in the front, his ribcage peeking through the dusty material.

In a sick way, it was almost beautiful.

Blue eyes stared at him, as Kagami stared back slack jawed and terrified. Vaguely, he felt the tree branch let go of his wrist. He somehow managed to tear his gaze away to look down, and he would’ve screamed again if he had any breath.

The branch was a skeleton hand, with his ring glinting on its third finger. It hopped away from him and walked over to the body on its fingers. The body reached down and picked it up, reattaching it firmly before looking at Kagami again.

Then it _spoke_ , voice like a mix of wind rustling leaves and the soft flutter of a butterfly.

“Those could be beautiful vows, but I’m afraid you need to work more on the delivery.”

And Kagami fainted.


	2. The Seven Bones

“Are you sure he’s alright, Midorima-kun?”

Kagami was swimming. His head was fuzzy, somewhere neither here nor there, and unable to focus. There were so many voices around him, blending together into a cacophony of sound. Except one voice stood out, gentle and soft, and Kagami latched onto it.

“He’s fine. He’ll come around soon.”

“He’s a breather? Why didn’t you say so, Kurokocchi?”

“Leave it to Tetsu to bring a breather. This should be good.”

“Please be quiet, Aomine-kun,” the same gentle voice said. “I think he’s waking up.”

He tried to crack his eyes open, even though his body didn’t want to cooperate. His vision was bleary, just smears of colors and shapeless faces. The first thing he saw was blue hovering over him. So much blue that he felt like he was drowning and resuscitating at the same time.

His gaze shifted away to the other person above him. And all he saw was yellow. Golden eyes that matched blonde hair, framed neatly into a fine suit of pinstripes and silk ties. A sunshine smile sat against the rotting color of his skin.

Kagami’s eyes snapped open as a scream lodged in his throat.

He was blinded by the color that exploded across his irises—neon greens, luminescent purples, startling reds. Later, he’d realize it was a bar, with kaleidoscopic bottles and crooked stools. In the back of his mind, he thought it was incredible compared to his greyscale life.

But at the time, all he could focus on was the patrons.

The very dead patrons.

A rainbow of skeletons and dead bodies surrounded him, missing limbs and eyes and even heads entirely. Their skeletal grins met his terrified stare, greeting him as if he were an old friend visiting. Between the spiders crawling up the walls, the roaches at home on the tables, and the cadavers looking at him, Kagami’s spine was little more than a jelly rod.

“Hello!” the yellow-eyed corpse chimed, all cheerful and decaying daisies. “Welcome to our bar!”

Adrenaline and terror shot down to Kagami’s first, sending it hurtling towards the man’s face. He barely dodged out of the way with a shriek. Grabbing hold of the blue-eyed corpse, he hid behind him with a pout.

“Kurokocchi! You brought a crazy one!”

“He’s not crazy, Kise-kun. He’s in shock.”

“ _Where the hell am I?!_ ” His voice echoed, but it was still drowned by the chatter and music.

“I told you, you’re in our bar!” His yellow eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! But for you, I guess it’s more like an underworld. We’re all dead!” His voice suddenly wilted, “Even though I used to not be dead.”

Kagami blanched. “ _I’m dead?!_ ”

The other figure—the corpse from before, his mind unhelpfully supplied—moved to knock the yellow-eyed man in the ribs, producing an unsettling arrangement of xylophone cracks. “Not now, Kise-kun.”

Then those blue eyes were on him again, and his hands started shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was out of fear or fascination. Either way, he was just as trapped in that unblinking gaze as he had been in the forest.

“Please calm down. You’re not dead. I brought you here.” He was calm and composed, his palm held out to Kagami. His voice was light, feathery around the syllables, and soothing, like water to a burn.

But that didn’t stop Kagami from nearly shrieking when he saw the hand held out to him was all bone.

“Why would you bring me here?!” He punctuated each word with a backwards scoot across squeaky floorboards.

“Well,” the corpse said, as if it were obvious. “A corpse certainly can’t carry a body into town. People would talk.”

“I told you he would freak, Tetsu. They always do.”

He snapped around towards the bar, where dark-skinned man with navy eyes scowled at him. The man looked normal enough, or at least his skin was a normal color and he wore some type of officer’s uniform instead of a suit. But when he knocked back his drink of choice, it started to leak out of pinholes on the front of his shirt, like a balloon poked with needles.

It was too much. It was really, _really too much_.

Quick thinking had never been Kagami’s strong suit, but instinct was. So he scrambled off the ground and reached for the first object that could be used as a weapon. His hand wrapped around what could be the hilt of a sword, ready to bash anybody’s head in.

“Get back! Right now! I have—” He jerked to bring the handle forward, only for it to barely budge.

Confused, he turned to look, and realized it was indeed a sword. A sword that was attached to a person. _Through_ a person.

He almost screamed again. But he had to make do with what he had. Fight or flight.

“I, uh… I have this dwarf! I’ll use him!” Kagami cried, yanking the sword harder so the redhead attached moved with it. He started to consider picking the shorter up and just tossing him at the crowd, when his red hair began to swivel. A heterochromatic set of red and gold eyes craned completely backwards to glare at him, the intent to kill pouring from him.

“You will release me. _Now_.”

Another strangled screech left his throat as he dropped the sword, backing away as quickly as he could. He tried to back up until he hit a door, then keep backing up until he ended up somewhere that made sense. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was bump into someone— _something_ —else.

He turned, and his gaze went up and up and up, staring at what had to be a giant with purple hair. Purple hair and an incredibly large knife stuck in his head, blade and handle jutting out from his temple. The giant leaned towards Kagami with a plate of what he would say were pastries, if pastries came with centipedes sprinkled on them.

“Kuro-chin,” he drawled, “your husband is trying to leave.”

“H-h-husband?!” Kagami immediately backed the other way.

“He’s not my husband, Murasakibara-kun,” the corpse interjected. “We haven’t gotten to know each other yet.”

Jaw dropping, he barked to the pale blue figure. “What do you mean _yet?!_ ”

Suddenly, a clang of piano keys rang out, as if someone slammed their hands down all at once. Kagami thought the music had been coming from a record player, but it was with the sound he realized it came from a grand piano in the corner of the room. It was occupied by a man with skin the color of sickness, as he peered over the top of his music sheet with a scowl.

“Kuroko,” he said, pushing up his cracked glasses with a bandaged hand, “could you silence him? He’s as loud as Kise when he first arrived.”

“I wasn’t that bad!” the yellow man protested.

“You cried for a week about how you were too young to die.”

“I _was_ too young to die!”

“He’s adjusting, Midorima-kun,” the blue corpse bowed in apology. “It’s normal for the living to yell during this, I believe.”

“Forgive me, sir!” someone interrupted from beside Kagami. When he turned to look, he felt all the blood rush from his face, his head reeling.

A head. It was just a _head_ , carried on a platter by a headless body.

“You must be terribly thirsty!” it continued. “Can I get you anything? I am the _head_ waiter around here.”

_No. No, no, no. **Fuck this.**_

Kagami had seen enough. He had heard enough. He was ready to leave. _Now_.

So he ran. His feet took off towards the nearest door, all but ripping it off its hinges as he tore into the street.

The last thing he heard was the gentle voice of blue eyes again, saying, “Izuki-senpai, your bad joke scared him off.”

Once outside, he thought that everything would turn back to normal. He’d step back through whatever hallucinatory portal he’d come through, and wake back up in his bed where his biggest concern was some dumb wedding. That was _not_ going to happen, not after all this.

But nothing was ever that easy.

Instead, he was in the middle of a dilapidated town of dynamic polychrome. Each building was a different color, crooked and slanting in ways that defied physics, and yet had creatures entering and leaving. Everything looked so different, but it all looked the same to him. The decaying signposts covered in spider webs didn’t help either, as they pointed places with creepy names Kagami was sure he didn’t want to visit.

He picked a random cobblestone road and took off, dodging ghost carriages and skeleton horses. He didn’t bother to look back, and didn’t even bother to look where he was running, just so long as it was the opposite direction of the bar.

Which made him bump into someone.

“Sorry!” he yelled out of reflex.

The man looked _normal_. His eyes were closed shut, but there was no rotting skin, no weapons poking out of his body. Just an average looking guy on his average way like he was in an average town.

Until the man tipped his whole head to the side, a sliver of skin the only thing keeping it attached.

“It’s alright! Are you lost? Can I help you?”

Kagami grit his teeth against another scream, and took off running without saying another word.

He ran and ran, but no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t escape this upside-down world. He came across three corpses on a street corner—two with brown hair and one bald—playing instruments in a cheerful beat. It took quite a leap for him to make it over their cello made of bones. Then there was a couple, a small girl and a guy with bent glasses on his nose, who were admiring coffins. When he avoided them, he ended up knocking over several caskets and apologized on instinct again.

Eventually, when his breath grew heavy, he came to a set of stairs. If this wasn’t a dream, and he really was in hell, then going up would be the best way out, right? He bounded up the stairs, taking three or four at a time. He was almost there, breaching the top, where home would be another step closer.

When the blue corpse appeared out of nowhere, like he’d been waiting there the whole time.

Kagami tried to do an about-face and run back down, only for his feet to skid on the steps. His arms pin wheeled as he tried to catch himself, but he could already feel himself start plunging. Gravity clawed at him, dragging him back into the depths of hell.

He was going to die. He was going to die, and wake up in the _same damn place_.

A hand of bones reached out and snatched the lapels of his suit, leaving him parallel to the ground. Another hand as cold as death grabbed his wrist. With a grip stronger than he expected from the dead, he was hauled back up onto solid ground.

As soon as he was on both feet, the corpse huffed out a huge breath, bending over to rest his hands on his knees. “Please be more careful. I’m not very strong and we may both end up at the bottom next time.”

Kagami glanced back and forth between the dead man before him and the stairs of death behind him. Red caught on blue as they stared at each other. For a moment, it felt like they didn’t need words at all, like they could have an entire conversation through gazes and irises.

It was interrupted by a blink. “Are you okay?”

“…You’re a corpse.” Kagami said dumbly.

“I am dead, yes,” blue eyes said, dusting off his suit. “I’d like if you didn’t remind me.”

He was about to ask how he could possibly forget _that_ of all things, with his skin a mystifying blue, metacarpals for a hand, and a hole in his cheek.

But then the worst thing he’d seen in his life, worse than anything he’d seen in this hellish landscape, stepped from around the corpse’s ankle.

It was small, its tiny nails clacking on concrete as it bounced in place. A bandage was wrapped around its middle, tied in a neat bow on its back, matching the one fastened on its left ear. It was all black, white, and wagging tail, with a neat set of stitches around its paws. Most unsettling of all, its eyes were just as blue and unblinking as the corpse beside it.

He stared in horror, nose wrinkled. “What is that? _What the hell is that?_ ”

The corpse bent down and actually picked up the little monster, scratching behind its ears as the beast licked his face.

“This is Nigou. He helped me find you.”

“ _That is a demon_.”

A pout crossed undead lips as he looked to Kagami in surprise, wrinkle forming on his forehead. “Please be nicer when addressing Nigou.”

Kagami balked so hard he nearly fell back down the stairs.

“Be nicer?! You want me to _be nicer?!_ After you’ve dragged me to—to whatever the hell this place is! While you’re a corpse, I’m possibly dead, and that’s a dog!”

The corpse blinked. “Do you not like dogs?”

“ _No, I don’t, but that’s not the point!_ ”

Those blue eyes just stared at him (both sets of them actually) and Kagami felt like he was walking into a thick fog. He had no idea where he was going, no concept of anything outside of those eyes. While it was terrifying, chills racing down his neck, he still found himself creeping closer. Like all those times before, when he looked for too long, he started drowning.

Anyone, whether dead or not, who would risk themselves to help someone else couldn’t be all bad. Kagami felt it in his gut, and he decided to trust that.

“You’re…Kuroko? Tetsu?” He rubbed at his nape. “That’s what they called you back there.”

The corpse made a face. “Please don’t call me Tetsu.” Then he bowed. “I am Kuroko Tetsuya. But I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“Kagami. Kagami Taiga.”

“Kagami-kun,” Kuroko said, testing the syllables. “What a strange name.”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna be called strange by you.”

Kuroko paused. Then actually laughed. It was such a light and airy sound, chiming around them with quiet mirth. Kagami couldn’t help but smile back it was so infectious.

When his laughter died down, Kuroko glanced at him before walking off in the opposite direction. Kagami stood there, staring after his too graceful steps. He…wasn’t going to just _leave_ him here, was he? He took a few steps after him without thinking, mouth working around words he didn’t know to say.

Nigou still tucked under his arm, Kuroko looked back and gestured with his head. “Come with me for a moment, please.”

He shouldn’t. He had no reason to.

But Kagami followed him.

Tugging at his tie as they walked down streets and up more stairs, Kuroko led him to a clearing with a bench. It was surrounded by coffins and empty urns, but it was simple. Just a plain wooden bench made of jagged planks, so normal that Kagami nearly wept.

Then he saw the view, and his breath left him.

They were on an overhang, looking out over the entire nightmare town. A million stars twinkled over the kaleidoscope landscape, as bright and vibrant a place as Kagami had ever dreamed. The crooked rainbow of buildings glimmered like a smile, the roofs like teeth as people walked into its gaping jaw.

“Wow…”

A thunk sounded out behind him. His focus switched back to the corpse that led him here, who had taken up residence on the bench. His skeleton hand picked up a skull, one of the many random remains that were littered everywhere, tossed it at one of the urns. He missed spectacularly, but it hopped back for him to try again.

Kagami realized he was staring, head tilted and brows furrowed in a confused scowl. Kuroko’s free hand patted the seat beside him, an unspoken invitation left to Kagami’s discretion. He chalked it up to whatever temporary insanity he was suffering, and took his place on the bench as skulls were continuously thrown at urns.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asked.

“It’s a game I made up. To pass the time.” Another shot, another miss. “Every time I make it, I get two points.”

Kagami watched him curiously as he missed shot after shot. “You’re not very good, are you?”

“I’m the best player there is.”

“It’s because you’re the only player, isn’t it?”

By the twitch of pale lips, he knew he was right.

He watched until his hand trembled, as if it subconsciously yearned to join in. Like everything else, he knew that he shouldn’t, especially since he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a hellish fever dream. But his mouth was moving before he thought any better.

“Hey, lemme try. But maybe with something less dead?”

Kuroko paused and blinked up at him.

He flushed. “Fine! At least something that’s not a skull!”

Kuroko searched around his seat, then handed him some stray sheets of paper with his bony hand. Kagami snatched them before wadding them up, crushing a sheet between his palms. He tossed one towards an urn. It sunk in perfectly.

He really, _really_ liked that.

There was something captivating and fun about it, something that felt right. Enough so that he grabbed another sheet of paper right after. Crumped it, then sunk it again effortlessly. Something sparked to life inside him, somewhere deep. An ember catching fire.

They sat together without saying much of anything. The only sound were the clunk of skulls and the rustle of papers, as they pitched their projectiles one after another after another. Kagami kept a mental tally of how many points they each had. Fourteen for him, two for his dead companion. Eventually, a skull was thrown and it didn’t return.

Turning to him with a smirk, Kagami teased, “I guess I’m the best player now, huh?”

Kagami could see the twitch of Kuroko’s lips through the hole in his cheek. “Maybe it was a terrible idea to bring you here, I’ve lost my title.”

Now that he wasn’t running for his life and could actually stop to breathe, the reality of everything flooded him. He looked between the powder blue skin beside him and his own warm tan, realizing that he’d been talking to someone who had _died_. He swallowed, needing to double check.

“So…I’m not dead, right?” he managed, voice shaky at the alternative.

“No, you’re not. I told you, you fainted and I brought you here. I wasn’t sure where else to go.” Kuroko tilted his head in thought, glancing up at the starry sky. “Actually, my leg fell off about three times carrying you. You’re heavier than you look, and you already look heavy.”

His eye twitched. “Hey, watch it!”

His lips twitched again. Then Kuroko turned to look at him, his wide stare pinning Kagami to the bench. “Are you okay? Will you go back to The Seven Bones with me?”

“The Seven Bones?”

“Yes, the bar from before.”

A dozen questions ran through Kagami’s head.

Why should he go back there? Why didn’t he demand for this guy to take him home already? And honestly, why would Kuroko even _want_ Kagami to go back with him? After he screamed and yelled and tried to deck someone in the face?

There were so many questions, but all he managed was, “…Why?”

“I said it before, we haven’t gotten to know each other. But…” Kuroko hesitated, averted his eyes and twisted his fingers in the edges of his frayed suit. “I would like to, if that’s okay.”

This place was an absolute nightmare, a cocktail of his worst fears. It even included dogs somehow, a freaking _zombie_ dog. If there was anything he shouldn’t want to do, it was to go back in the thick of it all. Where ghosts and ghouls could tear him apart and leave his remains to litter the street like the skulls Kuroko had been tossing.

But, when he met Kuroko’s crystal clear gaze, Kagami wanted to trust him. After not trusting anyone but Tatsuya and Alex for so long, he wanted to put his faith in a skeleton hand and hope for the best. Kuroko had saved him from a messy end on a flight of stairs, showed him this place, and taught him such a fun game.

Maybe Kuroko really did have some sort of hypnotic spell. Maybe that was why Kagami found himself agreeing.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “But, why in the world would you want to know me?”

“It’s not every day you meet someone who tries to punch a corpse.”

Kagami grinned, wild and reckless, and he realized it was something he hadn’t done in ages. “Were you a weird guy when you were alive too?”

A smile graced over Kuroko’s face, teeth glinting through his missing cheek. Somehow though, it made him look less like a dead body and more like a normal person.

He looked like he hadn’t smiled in ages either.

“I’ve been told I was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, guys!! I hope you all had a very lovely and spooky day~ I was originally gonna have a lot more to this, but then the next chapter wouldn't have as much and I was worried there was too much for one chapter. But! That means I should have the next chapter up tomorrow or the next day. Thank you guys for reading, it means the world to me. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, confession time: this fic has been in the works for about three years now. When I first started it, I didn't realize it was gonna be so long, and then I kept putting it off. Until it became this multichapter mess that's probably disjointed from taking so long to write. But I loved writing it and it's become one of my favorite fics, so be gentle with me. <3
> 
> Anyways! The plan is to have the second chapter up tomorrow for Halloween (because it's the spookiest chapter~), and then the rest will go up in the following days. I don't wanna overload the tag or anything. I hope you guys enjoyed this and are looking forward to what happens next with our dorky dead duo!


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